Splatoon 2 Making a Difference

[J'Wiz]

One thing I've noticed a lot lately in chats and the salt thread is an abundance of people being stuck in the S/S+0 area. The common complaint I see is that they keep de-ranking from S+0 and ranking up from S. It's not like they're doing poorly either. They show their match stats and show that they often lead in splats on their team. I'm on the same boat.

Even though we did our part, something kept us from winning. That is, as the title suggests, the ability to make a difference. We just do our part, but oftentimes more is needed, especially in the S and early S+ range, where everyone else is getting there by just doing their part. I've noticed that wins are often decided by whoever has the courageous pusher on their team. The one person who makes the difference by doing something the team couldn't do without.

This thread is dedicated to what that something might be. It could be the obvious going around killing everything, or it could be keeping the objective safe. Just something you can do for your team that results in victory in an otherwise lost match.

A good example of "making a difference" is an Octobrush Noveau teammate in Splat Zones. This person didn't get many kills, since it was Walleye, and the opponents were mid-range killers, but the person put some clever beacons on the map, and when we wiped, he would shout "This way!" at us, and we'd all flank the scattered enemies guarding the zone. We ended up winning. Not a huge deal, but I feel if we just kept rushing in from the front, we might not have been able to push and secure the zone.

tldr; How do you make a difference? What do you do for the team that is more than just doing your part? I think these ideas should benefit not only myself, but everyone else who is stuck in the same purgatory that is S/S+0.

 

[Dessgeega]

MAP CONTROL! Map control, map control, map control! Developers developers developers developers developers...

I see even pros falter in this area which is why I will always shout this to the heavens. If you have a weapon that can paint, take a second or two to spray side areas, corners where fighting is likely to happen, mid in particular. Every drop you put out enables movement for allies and hampers the enemy. When I see the enemy has at least 2 down, either through my own splats or my team's, I immediately move up and cover as much ground as I can. Likewise in teamfights, if I can't get a clear shot on the enemy I will paint around them and my ally, which more often than not results in the ally winning their duel.

This is how I get ahead in every mode. Control the map and the enemy is slowed and constrained, and if they stay that way long enough your odds of victory go up. Splats are important for completing the objective, but so is reducing mobility in a mobility-focused game. It certainly seems to work for the Japanese meta!

Oh, and the humongous pile of specials I get in every match doing this is a delight too :D

 

[Green Waffles]

Proper Special timing, use, and coordination are another big aspect.
Ever try defending against a push while a stingray and inkjet goes off?
Then, if you managed that, an unforseen splashdown sneaks in to snuff you?

If you get splatted often it becomes tougher to have specials at key moments.

You can take the special metagame a step further by learning to anticipate and counter/survive specials, or even splatting to deny your opponents specials altogether.
See also:aiming vs tracking, a guide to punishing predictable behavior(this guide, to my knowledge, does not exist =p )

 

[ThatOneGuy]

MAP CONTROL! Map control, map control, map control! Developers developers developers developers developers...

While I hate to admit it, he's right. Map control is essential to winning games, and it dictates how firefights are commonly won and how fast the game plays. Like it or not, it's one of the biggest principles of this game. However, some weapons cannot take this into their own hands. Some weapons just aren't the Picasso's or the Leonardo's when it comes to what's on the ground.

Here are a list of weapons that I believe cannot paint well, meaning they can't focus on map control all too well

Spoiler: Weapons that Can't Paint

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• You get the point. Weapons that fire thin, singular lines in slow bursts which doesn't translate well into painting the map. As other weapons can just press and hold zr for a couple seconds to cover what these weapons could cover in 30 seconds.

So, if you main one of these weapons that don't turf well, what do you do? Do you just throw your main in the garbage bin because it can't spray your favorite color on the ground? Well of course you didn't. Hell, I main half the weapons on the list. So, what do you do if you don't have any artistic skill when it comes to painting the ground? Not surprisingly, you play for kills my friend. Not just any kind of kill though. These kills have to be meaningful. They're not just trades or kills that you go out of your way for.

You need to treat a kill as a "pick", meaning when you get a numbers advantage over the other team (meaning when you get a clean kill resulting in a 4v3). You always want to have a positive number in teammates as opposed to the enemy team (your team - their team) if it's positive you can attempt a push (ideally you want to be up +2 or +3. +4 is amazing though.) If your team is in the negative, you're likely losing ground and the objective as a result. So if you're down, play defensively. Shark, and let the enemies come to you. Diving in without a numbers advantage is suicide since the enemies will focus you down. Just try to hold some ground so the enemy doesn't completely steamroll you. Basically, pay attention to the squid count at the top of the screen, this separates good players from phenomenal ones.

Now, you know when to push, but how do you get the kills? How do you get the momentum started? Apart from mastering / learning your weapon well enough to consistently kill, you should pay attention to your opponent's mistakes. Try to make the fight as unfair as possible. Try to catch your opponents with their guard down, when they're fighting one of your teammates in a 1v1, or when they're hurt. Just try to capitalize on what your opponent's conditions are before diving in. Just make sure that you have the upper hand in a fight if you engage the fight.

Now to finalize what I just said, here's all my points in just a 30 second clip.​

Spoiler: An in-game example

Why did this push magically work? Am I just a god at splatoon 2? Did I outplay those opponents so hard it ended their careers? No, and no. If you break it down, this was actually pretty easy to do. All I needed was the proper team support and the opponents to come at me like they did. I'll admit I aimed a little bit in this clip, but it wasn't anything special. I just made sure I had the advantage in every fight started and capitalized on my opponent's mistakes. Don't believe me? Let's take this clip part for part and see what we get.

The first kill I got on the Luna, I killed him while he was fighting my sniper, and since he was preoccupied with my teammate, I got to kill them pretty easily, up close even though they're a Luna Blaster. And as a result, I kill the Luna and save my sniper as well (which is pretty huge), and noticing I have a numbers advantage, I hop on the tower.

The next kill I get, the opponent is way out of position, as they're drowning in my ink color, so I punish the opponent for being there.

The kill after that, was me attacking an already damaged opponent (thanks to my saved sniper's stingray) and again, I kill someone else who was already damaged, making it an easy kill to secure.

The mini splatling who challenged me on the side of the tower died because they engaged me in an advantagous position and I trapped them in my ink, painting around them. So they couldn't strafe, run away or do anything about me sloshing them in the face.

Finally, the splattershot charges up from the left, and they kill my teammate :c , but since they were preoccupied with killing them, that gave me a small window of time to start sloshing at them and seeing as how they have no where else to go, I predicted their movement pretty easily (even though I could have died if I missed a direct there.)


But just notice how the opponents lost that lead. They all trickled in one by one, and I killed them one by one. And it helped that my team covered the ground and used their specials to help pressure the opponents into coming at me. Just so I could make a game winning play much easier than having to win fair fights or fights in the enemy team's favor.

If you like to kill things, I hope you thought of this as helpful. If you're nodding your head at me as a support player ashamed of my non painting ways, it's alright. Just make sure you cover turf for your teammates who can't do it themselves. Since they can perform amazing feats with turf in their possession and they can't access the turf themselves anyway.

 

[J'Wiz]

For one I can think of:

Pushing past the objective. This is mostly for Tower and Zones, but is also helpful for Rainmaker. Not sure about Clams. What's better than guarding the objective? Not letting the enemy get close to the objective! I have lost many TC and Zones matches where my team had a clear lead. I feel we could have won these if we, or atleast one of us just pushed past the objective instead of hovering around it. If you get a wipe on the enemy team, cover the map all the way to their base, and pick off anyone who is trying to get near the objective. Of course this often means spawn camping, but it's either spawn camp, or give the enemy a chance to break your meter. If you've pushed into the enemy base, it should be very difficult for the enemy to recover. Even if they do recover, that still should have given the objective a really good push.